Ethics issue emerges as computer literacy flourishes

On-line ethics: an oxymoron?

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The emerging field of computer ethics
is attacking computerized snooping, stealing, and lying while
trying to show the way to moral behavior in the on-line
world.

Concerns are growing among some Internet users as they see
how easy it might be for governments or individuals to pry
into supposedly private material. "Unlike mail, there are no
Geneva conventions that will stop someone (from) intervening
between the origin and the destination, looking at that
packet before it arrives," said New York University student T. Beads Land. Added fellow student Ilya Slavin, "If you violate someone's privacy by reading their mail -- electronic mail that is -- no one can you take to court. Is it ethical? I don't think so. But it's anybody's guess."

Another ethical concern is "netiquette," or on-line
politeness, and its opposite, "flaming." "You'll see long
arguments where an intellectual discussion breaks down into a
bunch of name calling. This is flaming," Land said.

Joshua Halberstam, a philosophy professor at New York
University who has written extensively about ethics, lately
has been focusing on information technology and how it is
reshaping our sense of personal boundaries. "We are again
developing communities, but these are not communities based
on geography," Halberstam said. "My neighbor is not the
guy next to me. It's the person that shares the same
interests as I do."

To live peacefully with your "cyber-neighbor," there must be
a strong sense of computer ethics.

While some people see primarily the potential for ethical
abuses in cyberspace, Halberstam takes a wider, more positive
view of the computer revolution and its future. "I think
this is going to be a very exciting time, specifically for
ethics, because I think the culture will now learn how to
develop ties and nets and communities and tolerance in ways
we haven't been able to do before." And Halberstam believes
the attention being paid to privacy and politeness eventually
will improve moral behavior both on and off the Internet.